How would you buff Sentinels?

[Shazbotacus]

Hm. With their reduced target cap, I'd up the damage of specifically their area effect attacks that hit fewer targets than their Blaster counterparts by... a bit. Not sure exactly how much, though I might not affect their "nukes" at first. Perhaps there's merit to upping their damage scale to 1.0 to 0.9, but I'd start with tweaking the damage of specifically those area effect attacks I mentioned earlier and seeing where that takes certain sets.

[Tankshock]

Sentinels right now are the training wheels class.  Super easy to play right out of the box, with minimal high end ability.  With incarnates and I/O's almost every other class can be considerably more effective than Sents.  Part of that might be the inherent, but it's also true that the ATO is bad.  Likewise, the Epics are bottom tier.  Fix those 3 things and Sents will be more interesting at 50+.

 

[BrandX]

Agree.  The epics suck.  They don't even fill needs.  Where's an Epic with Physical Perfection, Focused Accuracy and Superior Conditioning?

 

ATOs do suck.  Proc's are meh.  Just go with Purple Level Damage Procs.  It's a DPS AT.  Also, 5% Range Defense instead of 2.5% please.

 

I was thinking on the Inherent.

 

Let the bar build and build, and then one can click it (like Domination) and get +50% Crit.  Keep the 5% -Resist that all Sent's can stack.  Or one could tie it to the click.  Either or really.

 

I wouldn't know how long to keep the Crit Buff active or whether it should be permable like Domination is.  Was?  No idea if it was changed in HC.

[DR_Mechano]

1 hour ago, Tankshock said:

Sentinels right now are the training wheels class.  Super easy to play right out of the box, with minimal high end ability.  With incarnates and I/O's almost every other class can be considerably more effective than Sents.  Part of that might be the inherent, but it's also true that the ATO is bad.  Likewise, the Epics are bottom tier.  Fix those 3 things and Sents will be more interesting at 50+.

 

Well, unfortunately, a lot of the ATO uniques kinda suck for a few classes. Tankers and Brutes get ones that are decent. Scrappers and Stalkers get ones that are life changing. Controllers get ones that are on par with Sentinel in being just god damn awful as do Blaster IIRC.

[BrandX]

8 hours ago, DR_Mechano said:

Well, unfortunately, a lot of the ATO uniques kinda suck for a few classes. Tankers and Brutes get ones that are decent. Scrappers and Stalkers get ones that are life changing. Controllers get ones that are on par with Sentinel in being just god damn awful as do Blaster IIRC.

 

One set has a Purple Level Damage Proc, so that's good.  The other is Mez Resist, but having not made a Blaster, I couldn't say how good that resist is.  Sounds terrible though.

 

I do wish they both gave 5% Range defense, instead of 5% and 2.5% (which comes with 5% Energy/Negative Defense).  Now, personally, for me, if the set gives a Purple Level Damage Proc, I'm okay with the proc.

 

I'm not sure I find the +3 Fury Proc all that useful and I'm not sure how good the End/Regen Proc helps me, but I figure it's helping my End on a Regen 😛

[Varkarrus]

[Solarverse]

On 9/17/2019 at 8:26 PM, Kaylin said:

I actually don’t mind the reduced range and aoe, but I really would like the inherent to be better. It’s terrible as is, both in how effective it is as well as how coherent/understandable it is. Perhaps just a Always on small -res added to all attacks or something, similar in concept to the blaster inherent. That way they would still do substantially less damage solo than blasters, but perhaps catch up on large teams.

This right here. Sentinels don't need any other buff other than the inherent. Sentinels are on the verge of being OP as they are, but that inherent needs to be something that better fits the class.

[Rathulfr]

3 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Sentinels are on the verge of being OP as they are

/em ROFLMAO

/em wipes tears from his eyes.

/em bursts out laughing again.

[Solarverse]

3 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

/em ROFLMAO

/em wipes tears from his eyes.

/em bursts out laughing again.

You gonna be okay there, little guy?

 

Edit: I'm going to go on ahead and elaborate.  What I am seeing is that people are wanting Sents to be more like Blasters. Asking for Blaster range, asking for Blaster AoE type damage...

 

The way I see it, if you want Blaster range and Blaster DPS, then role a Blaster.

 

The resists and Defense a Sent can get with Invuln is just straight up OP for a ranged DPS class.  I can't speak for the other secondaries, but if they are anything like what I can get with Invuln, it's just straight up OP. Asking for more range or more DPS without trading in some of that ridiculous resist/defense is just asking to do to Blasters what has already been done to Tanks by Brutes. It would only drive Blasters to the bottom of the barrel, and with Corruptors already on the nipping at the heals of Blasters, that is just something we don't need. Sents are often the last man standing on team wipes and they boast this all over the game. There is a reason for that.

 

Yes, I said it loud and clear and I stand by it...Sents are already on the verge of being OP. They are not OP yet, but they are approaching dangerously close. You can laugh and giggle and pretend it's not an issue, but I never needed your approval to see the math plain as day. Do Sents need a new and improved Inherent? Yes, I agree with this. But to pretend they need more damage and more range? Hell no, I will not agree with that. That would send them straight over the edge of making them OP and Blasters would be played only out of nostalgia rather than picked up for what they bring to the team.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Solarverse

[Rathulfr]

6 hours ago, Solarverse said:

You gonna be okay there, little guy?

 

Edit: I'm going to go on ahead and elaborate.  What I am seeing is that people are wanting Sents to be more like Blasters. Asking for Blaster range, asking for Blaster AoE type damage...

 

The way I see it, if you want Blaster range and Blaster DPS, then role a Blaster.

 

The resists and Defense a Sent can get with Invuln is just straight up OP for a ranged DPS class.  I can't speak for the other secondaries, but if they are anything like what I can get with Invuln, it's just straight up OP. Asking for more range or more DPS without trading in some of that ridiculous resist/defense is just asking to do to Blasters what has already been done to Tanks by Brutes. It would only drive Blasters to the bottom of the barrel, and with Corruptors already on the nipping at the heals of Blasters, that is just something we don't need. Sents are often the last man standing on team wipes and they boast this all over the game. There is a reason for that.

 

Yes, I said it loud and clear and I stand by it...Sents are already on the verge of being OP. They are not OP yet, but they are approaching dangerously close. You can laugh and giggle and pretend it's not an issue, but I never needed your approval to see the math plain as day. Do Sents need a new and improved Inherent? Yes, I agree with this. But to pretend they need more damage and more range? Hell no, I will not agree with that. That would send them straight over the edge of making them OP and Blasters would be played only out of nostalgia rather than picked up for what they bring to the team.

 

The base defense/resist modifier of Sentinels is 0.7, whereas everybody else (except Tankers and Brutes) is 0.75: how is that OP?  Check my math here, but... 0.7 < 0.75, last time I looked.  Your problem isn't with math, it's with the notion of "ranged DPS with armor".  And I suspect this is based on the old canard about "range = defense" from other games and pre-I4 CoH (a.k.a. "City of Blasters").  Range hasn't made a significant difference to defense in CoH since 2005.

 

Next, I never asked for more range or increased AoE target caps.  I see the reduction in range and AoE target caps as a fair trade-off for the improved durability.

 

Finally, 6 months of experience and extensive play-testing and reporting show that Sentinels are at the bottom of the DPS barrel.  Defenders do better damage than Sentinels.  I recently saw a post about a Stalker doing better DPS than a Sentinel, using only ranged attacks.  So I hardly think that bringing up the base damage modifier from 0.95 to 1.0 (a whopping 5% increase) is going to "drive Blasters to the bottom of the barrel".  That's just patently ridiculous.

 

BTW: I play both Blasters and Sentinels, having half a dozen or so at level 50+.  I can assure you that I have no concerns that my Sentinels would ever out-DPS my Blasters with such minor tweaks as those proposed here.  And I can also assure you that at max-level with the proper IO sets, it's far easier to make a tanky Blaster than it is to make a blasty Sentinel.

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Rathulfr

[ninja surprise]

10 hours ago, Rathulfr said:

BTW: I play both Blasters and Sentinels, having half a dozen or so at level 50+.  I can assure you that I have no concerns that my Sentinels would ever out-DPS my Blasters with such minor tweaks as those proposed here.  And I can also assure you that at max-level with the proper IO sets, it's far easier to make a tanky Blaster than it is to make a blasty Sentinel.

 

Indeed, and given that Sentinels were apparently supposed to be ranged Scrappers, Blasters out-DPS Scrappers.

[Tankshock]

On 11/11/2019 at 1:33 PM, Solarverse said:

Sentinels are on the verge of being OP as they are.

I think this comes back to the level of investment different people make.  Straight out of the box, Sents are great.  But they gain much less from high end investment.  My Blasters and Corrupters are virtually equal in survival to my Sent, yet do significantly more damage.  I have a Tank who does comparable AoE (SD/Elec), and is of course much tougher.

[nihilii]

20 hours ago, Tankshock said:

Corrupters are virtually equal in survival to my Sent, yet do significantly more damage.

I've made the same answer elsewhere, but this is a surprising enough statement compared to my own experience I'll repost it.

My Fire/Time corruptor with a focus on DPS does ~240 DPS.
My Fire/* sentinels do 360 DPS.
Even my Dark/Invul sentinel does 260+ DPS, and neither Dark nor Invul tend to be thought of as particularly damaging. I'm not even using epics on this particular sentinel.

AoE comparisons are more difficult to justify in pure numbers, but when it comes to practical experience, my sentinels also pull ahead of the corruptor.

 

All sentinels can Aim(+GaussianBU) + Nuke every half minute. Even with lowered target gap, this ensures most of the group is wiped out with that first AoE salvo. Sentinels naturally lock on that ~25s defeat time per group.

My corruptor simply cannot keep up with that. Inferno is up every 2 groups, not 1, so every other group my AoE output is drastically lower. I'm also spending animation time on -RES, as well as Farsight - and that's the ideal scenario. If I'm on +4/x8 against tough factions and need to heal, that's more time spent not attacking.

 

I could see a Fire/Storm corruptor dealing more damage against ST targets, provided these targets are relatively static. Tornado and Lightning Storm are beastly. But corruptors as a whole aren't likely to even reach damage parity with sentinels IMHO, if both are built well.


 

[Moka]

Get rid of defensive opportunity and make offensive opportunity a self sustaining damage buff that also inflicts -res on enemies.

[Tankshock]

4 hours ago, nihilii said:

AoE comparisons are more difficult to justify in pure numbers, but when it comes to practical experience, my sentinels also pull ahead of the corruptor.

We have very different experiences, then.  My Fire Sent isn't too far behind either my Water/Rad Corrupter or Ice/Time Blaster.  But the kicker is that both of them are more survivable than the Sent.  If I got him up to 45% def, his damage would fall even farther behind.

 

There are always exceptions for each toon, but I've never found pylon testing to compare very well to actual performance.  

[atletikus]

On 11/11/2019 at 1:50 AM, BrandX said:

 

One set has a Purple Level Damage Proc, so that's good.  The other is Mez Resist, but having not made a Blaster, I couldn't say how good that resist is.  Sounds terrible though.

 

I do wish they both gave 5% Range defense, instead of 5% and 2.5% (which comes with 5% Energy/Negative Defense).  Now, personally, for me, if the set gives a Purple Level Damage Proc, I'm okay with the proc.

The Blaster ATO  you mention  actually provides a stackable a mag 1 mez protection and oftentimes a single serving is enough to break mez.  The intention behind it is good in theory, but in reality Blasters who can afford the proc, overwhelmingly build defenses which makes mez much less of an issue. In addition several of the new secondaries come with some form of mez protection/resist.  So yeah, the proc is not so hot.

2 out of 9 ancillary armor sets (cold and mace) build for typed as opposed to positional defense. If both ATO defensive bonus was primarily ranged positional, it would be a nerf to the typed sets (that admittedly are much easier to soft cap and to do so without sacrificing as much damage as the positional builds).

 

On 11/12/2019 at 3:50 PM, ninja surprise said:

Indeed, and given that Sentinels were apparently supposed to be ranged Scrappers, Blasters out-DPS Scrappers.

Blaster DPS is much to varied to be talked about in uniform terms. Way too varied in the world of IOs and secondaries who both can provide significant levels of survivability. There is Fire. Then there is the rest. Then there is Sonic. I don't think average Blaster primaries "out-DPS" any Scrapper and for sure not unless they pair up with an unsafe blapper secondary. 

[DrRocket]

I recently rolled my first Sentinel, and I totally adore it. I was going to recreate my blaster from the live days, but in my mind good damage at moderate range and status effect protected! Sign me up!

 

The only thing I would really like to see added to the Sentinel is a snipe attack, so the sentinel can assist the team they are serving in to pull mobs in a tasctical manner.

 

Otherwise I have no issue with the attack ranges, for that indeed differentiates the combat performance between sentinels and blasters. I have no issue with the damage of the two being comparable.

 

Regards

[boggo2300]

14 hours ago, DrRocket said:

I recently rolled my first Sentinel, and I totally adore it. I was going to recreate my blaster from the live days, but in my mind good damage at moderate range and status effect protected! Sign me up!

 

The only thing I would really like to see added to the Sentinel is a snipe attack, so the sentinel can assist the team they are serving in to pull mobs in a tasctical manner.

 

Otherwise I have no issue with the attack ranges, for that indeed differentiates the combat performance between sentinels and blasters. I have no issue with the damage of the two being comparable.

 

Regards

the lack of snipe is pretty much a lock in for the existence of the Sentinel, I personally would be REALLY pissed if they got one

[Haijinx]

On 11/10/2019 at 11:25 AM, DR_Mechano said:

Well, unfortunately, a lot of the ATO uniques kinda suck for a few classes. Tankers and Brutes get ones that are decent. Scrappers and Stalkers get ones that are life changing. Controllers get ones that are on par with Sentinel in being just god damn awful as do Blaster IIRC.

One of the Blaster procs is good, the stacking status protection.

 

[BrandX]

Why didn't Sentinels get Snipes in Epics?

[Bossk_Hogg]

On 11/22/2019 at 10:11 AM, DrRocket said:

I recently rolled my first Sentinel, and I totally adore it. I was going to recreate my blaster from the live days, but in my mind good damage at moderate range and status effect protected! Sign me up!

 

The only thing I would really like to see added to the Sentinel is a snipe attack, so the sentinel can assist the team they are serving in to pull mobs in a tasctical manner.

 

Otherwise I have no issue with the attack ranges, for that indeed differentiates the combat performance between sentinels and blasters. I have no issue with the damage of the two being comparable.

 

Regards

Keep playing it and you'll run into the ass tier damage that people are complaining about. Defender damage doesn't seem pathetic initially either. Compare the damage per second of activation and you'll see how far behind Scrappers they are for anything other than fire. Energy blast sentinels are waddling around at about 50 DPA, which is tank level damage. Then factor in that tanks are getting around a 20% buff when the patch hits, plus bigger AE's that hit more targets.

[Galaxy Brain]

Necroing this, but do we have any numbers on the opportunity mode buffs? I think if say, both buffs were simply combined and able to be triggered by activating (not hitting) any Sentinel ST attack it would be a start... 

[Replacement]

12 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Necroing this

Brave.

[Blastit]

On 11/24/2019 at 5:06 PM, BrandX said:

Why didn't Sentinels get Snipes in Epics?

Because they already have ranged attacks for a primary.

[Solarverse]

Honestly, the creation of Sentinels were a mistake IMO. They should have never been introduced to the game, it's just yet another class that needs constant balancing because they honestly have no place in the game. You can't give them too much DPS because then they will just be Blasters with shields (which a lot of people who play them already think this) and you can't gimp them too much because then nobody would play them. It was just a bad idea all the way around IMO and they honestly bring nothing new to the game. We already have Blasters, we already have Tanks, why did we need a class that can do both? None of their power sets are unique, they are simply a class who never belonged and IMO never will belong.

In case you couldn't tell, I hate the class with a passion, so any info I could add to the subject would be highly biased and therefore completely useless. I wish you Sent players the best of luck though, you wouldn't have the passion for a class that can't be properly balanced if it had never been created, but now, sadly, you are stuck in Pandora's Box.